Home » Category archives: 'Editorial' (Page 4)
This project report relates to The English Novel, 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles, general editors Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling, 2 vols (Oxford: OUP, 2000). In … Continue reading
The records presented here comprise a listing of novels that were advertised in The Star, a London evening daily newspaper, during 1815 through 1824. These records represent only a relatively short and edited section of … Continue reading
Amy E. Weldon discusses the emerging animal rights movement of the long eighteenth century and the benefits of didacticism in the emerging genre of children’s literature. Examining the moral tenor of Anna Letitia Barbauld’s ‘The Mouse’s Petition’ and ‘The Caterpillar’ with respect to writing on children and morality by her contemporaries, Mary Wollstonecraft and Alexander Pope, the article charts the dissenting underpinnings of both the anti-slavery and anti-animal cruelty movements. It argues that both the language of sensibility and Christian moral education (which calls for love and mercy) could be effected through literature and taught through the presence of animal characters in Barbauld’s writing. Barbauld’s construction of clemency in the domestic war against animals, whether mice or caterpillars, speaks to the empathy possible on an international scale where widespread clemency could lead to the reconfiguration of existing political orders. Signposting the real problem of animal cruelty in eighteenth-century Britain in entertainments such as horse and bull-baiting, Barbauld’s writing can be seen as a point of intersection between Christian ideology and middle-class moral education. Ultimately, this article argues that the Dissenters’ moral and philosophical beliefs harmonise with the animal rights movement. Continue reading
Our modern conception of authorship founded on the Romantic ideal of individualism finds purchase and root in the figure of William Wordsworth. Using Wordsworth as a case study, Jacqueline Rhodes draws attention to ‘the critical abnormality’ of Wordsworth’s ‘Preface’ to his two-volume Poems by William Wordsworth (1815). Rhodes explains how ‘the culmination of the century-long development of the radical textual individual: the professional writer’ sees a change in the cultural meaning, and legal definition, of authorship in the eighteenth century, with the move towards author-centric rather than publisher-centric copyright laws. Rhodes demonstrates how authorship and copyright came to be applicable and how ideas of individual creativity, original genius and the solitary author in the context of the European Enlightenment sees plagiarism demonised and individuality valorised. Discussing the emergence of professional writers, and their payment as concurrently respectable, Rhodes charts how authorship is constructed and how the move towards a 42-year copyright period (1842) was based not only on ‘[t]he increased industrialisation of products in the eighteenth century [that] led to an increased commodification of culture, including textual culture’ but the ‘Romantic idea of ‘inspiration’’ which Rhodes argues contributes directly ‘to the idea of textual ownership’ and ‘text-as-capital and author-as-owner’. Continue reading
The Publishing Context ‘I have thus my dear friend brought to bear what I conceive is a very important business for both of us. If these people had sooner seen their true interest we should … Continue reading
In his work on Percy’s Reliques, Nick Groom identifies an all-important link between eighteenth-century ideas of the ancient poets and poems and the Romantic ideal of poetic genius. Both are perceived as ‘natural’ while, at … Continue reading
Peut-être devirons-nous analyser ici ces Romans nouveaux, dont le sortilège et la fantasmagorie composent à-peu-près tout le mérite, en placant à leur tête le Moine, supérieur, sous tous les rapports, aux bisarres élans de la … Continue reading
This project report relates to The English Novel, 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction published in the British Isles, general editors Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling, 2 vols (Oxford: OUP, 2000). In … Continue reading
The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties (1814), Frances Burney’s last novel, opens with the flight of a nameless heroine in search of her ‘loved, long lost, and fearfully recovered native land’. [1] Born in Wales and … Continue reading
The economic and social welfare of a country is often directly related to its literary output. The periodical, the Dublin Magazine, captured this well in its issue of February of 1820, when it stated that: … Continue reading
This essay is about two authors, Jane Loudon and Mary Shelley, and the ways in which the one reflects upon the other. [1] Mary Shelley’s first novel Frankenstein, as is well known, was first published … Continue reading
In 1803, a curious account was appended to a short Gothic tale that appeared in the Tell-Tale Magazine; it was published anonymously and narrated the distressing and dismal ‘Life of an Authoress , Written by … Continue reading
The familiar story of the rise of the modern novel has been told often enough that I need only briefly summarise it here. Most narratives credit the printer Samuel Richardson with initiating the discourse of … Continue reading
This project report relates to The English Novel, 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles, general editors Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling, 2 vols. (Oxford: OUP, 2000). In … Continue reading
‘Wolcot left behind many boxes of unpublished manuscripts of his own writings for which, it was said, the booksellers offered a thousand pounds, but for which the executor demanded double and which when he, too, … Continue reading
In the preface to his dramatic fragment The Deformed Transformed (1822), Byron acknowledges it to be partly based on The Three Brothers (1803), a Gothic romance by Joshua Pickersgill. [1] Most studies on The Deformed … Continue reading
I The booksellers of Hookham and Carpenter (hereafter referred to only as ‘Hookham’) were located on New Bond Street in London, and their records span the most politically turbulent decade of the eighteenth-century—the 1790s. Clients … Continue reading
I In 1826, Mary Shelley recalled the Summer of 1814 as ‘incarnate romance’, when ‘a new generation’ of youthful travellers with ‘time and money at command’, yet heedless of ‘dirty packets and wretched inns’, ‘poured, … Continue reading
This project report relates to The English Novel, 1770–1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction published in the British Isles, general editors Peter Garside, James Raven, and Rainer Schöwerling, 2 vols. (Oxford: OUP, 2000). In … Continue reading
In the years immediately following Hogg’s death late in 1835, the Glasgow firm of Blackie & Son brought out two collected sets of his writing, Tales and Sketches by the Ettrick Shepherd, in six volumes, … Continue reading
In ‘Bibliomania: Book Collecting, Cultural Politics, and the Rise of Literary Heritage in Romantic Britain’, [1] Philip Connell argues that the decade of the 1810s saw the rise of diverse strains of bibliomania involving the … Continue reading
For over a decade after its firts edition in 1828, Charles Heath’s Keepsake stood out as the most elegant of the English annuals, its binding and engraving setting the high standard by which other giftbooks … Continue reading
From 1837 to 1854, Henry Reed, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, served as William Wordsworth’s editor in America, and with Wordsworth’s approbation did much to promote the poet’s trans-Atlantic … Continue reading
‘Extempore Effusion’ declares itself a poem ‘Upon the Death of James Hogg,’ but the Ettrick Shepherd is mentioned in only three of the forty-four lines of the poem. Viewed as evidence of a biographical kind … Continue reading
Thomas Hood’s versatile career spans the years from the early 1820s until he died of consumption and overwork in March 1845. At various stages, he worked as engraver and illustrator, reviewer, editor, publisher, playwright, novelist, … Continue reading
Amidst all the judgements passed on them, nobody has ever claimed that, in their original board bindings, Minerva Press novels were aesthetically appealing and distinctive in appearance. [1] But, for a few years at least, … Continue reading
Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bed-side, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in … Continue reading
While eighteenth-century definitions of satire portray it is as a masculine discourse, a survey of Romantic-period titles shows that women writers wrote narrative satire in numbers nearly equal to those of male satirical novelists. [1] … Continue reading
The early decades of the nineteenth century are coming to be recognised as a peculiarly uncertain time, socially, culturally, and artistically. London is centrally important to this understanding: the rapidly expanding metropolis, bigger than any … Continue reading
Introduction Online Identities, the Information Highway, Information Overload are just a sample of terms coined in the twentieth century in order to embody the effects of the communication processes of digital media. [1] For many … Continue reading
I I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience. [1] With her signature knowingness and wit, … Continue reading
In a letter dated 12 November 1824, Thomas Campbell writes of his delight that The Pleasures of Hope would be translated into French: ‘I shall be much flattered to see myself in French Costume.’ [2] … Continue reading
According to Lee Erickson, in a recent essay, Walter Scott’s refusal of the poet laureateship in 1813 and the publication of his first novel, Waverley, a year later were sure signs of ‘a coming shift … Continue reading
I Biography with Reference to ‘A Ker-ish Trick’ and ‘The Heiress di Montalde’ As a descendant of Anne Ker, I have researched her family history including her novel The Heiress di Montalde (1799) and her … Continue reading
When in 1801 an anonymous Dutch author published a novel called Dolozetta, of de belaagde deugd (Dolozetta, or Virtue Beset ), he, or she, proclaimed on its title page that the book had not been … Continue reading
In his essay ‘The English Novel in the Romantic Era’, Peter Garside introduces the obscure and remarkably prolific figure of Mrs Meeke in the following terms: Mary Meeke is almost as productive [as Scott] with … Continue reading
Conventional studies of the short fictional form, whilst acknowledging the existence of the genre in the early nineteenth century, have nevertheless viewed that period as one of relative infertility. Ian Reid, for example, despite arguing … Continue reading
I The following checklist provides bibliographical details of 217 gothic bluebooks scattered throughout twenty-one national, academic, and private libraries in the British Isles, North America, and Germany (Fürstliche Bibliothek Corvey, North Rhine Westphalia). In its … Continue reading
I English novelist Anne Ker (Phillips) was born in 1766 and published several works of popular fiction between the years of 1799 and 1817. [1] She was a commercial writer whose desire to sell aligns … Continue reading
I In a letter to the poetess Anna Seward on 30 November 1802, Walter Scott surveyed the various methods of publication open to a budding author, including one that was definitely not suited to himself: … Continue reading
I The 1810s, 20s, and 30s were transitional decades for Britain. These years saw the dislocation of Romantic, revolutionary energies and the onset of a more stable Victorian society. Whilst early-nineteenth-century fiction participated in this … Continue reading
I The Cork writer Edward Walsh was born in Derry in 1805: at the time of his birth, Walsh’s father belonged to the North Cork Militia and was posted in Ireland. However, Walsh was reared … Continue reading
Mary Julia Young was a prolific author of fiction and poetry between 1791 and 1810. Although she was listed as one of the ‘Mothers of the Novel’ in Dale Spender’s 100 Good Women Writers Before … Continue reading
The inspirational potential of Italian literature for British Romantic authors has been investigated in studies such as Peter Vassallo’s discussions of Byron and Shelley or Ralph Pite’s The Circle of our Vision: Dante’s Presence in … Continue reading
On 14 September 1814, Samuel Rogers came upon a stone tablet in Geneva marking the birthplace of Rousseau and close by another for Charles Bonnet (1720–93), the Swiss naturalist. ‘No such things with us’, Rogers … Continue reading
The argument of this book is that Wordsworth’s later poetry focuses less upon nature and the poet’s inner self, more upon the visible external world, the visual arts and the visual appearance of his own … Continue reading
This book uses Nietzsche’s writings to explore the treatment of the self as a fictional construct in the work of Keats and Shelley and, in turn, argues that both poets anticipate Nietzschean theories of subjectivity, … Continue reading
This collection of essays, which takes as its unifying theme the cultural traffic between Romanticism and Victorianism, is a recent addition to Ashgate’s The Nineteenth Century, a series which in itself challenges established patterns of … Continue reading
The aim of Ashgate’s Nineteenth Century Series ‘is to reflect, develop and extend the great burgeoning interest in the nineteenth century […] as a locus for our understanding not only of the past but of … Continue reading
In Thomas Flanagan’s novel, The Year of the French (London, 1980), a young Maria Edgeworth passes close to the scene of a recent massacre of Irish rebels. Unable to see the slaughtered bodies of the … Continue reading
